Hard News: Labour's Fiscal Plan: Explaining without losing?
57 Responses
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Well they could start explaining with a much better website/comms - the linked site is fine if you want to wade through fairly detailed economic targets, but neither that or the media release say plainly what it is they are doing?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Agreed.
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Joyce was simply rude on Morning Report, and he clutched at straws when challenged by Parker. Joyce appeared to be saying that what was wrong with the proposed capital gains tax was that it didn't apply to all houses. Yet his party won't implement that solution across any houses. Go figure.
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A weird Joyce being Joyceless and blustery. It almost sounded as though they are worried.
I wonder if the twists and turns of the English response will be highlighted as much as the Cunliffe dolphin switch? -
National Ministers are used to spouting unchallenged talking points to fawning presenters in soft interviews. Joyce thought he was doing a routine he said/she said until Espiner pretty much ambushed him by keeping Parker in the studio.
Since refusing to debate anything with anyone in a serious forum has been the hallmark of this governments six year in power, I reckon Joyce will be seething at Espiner.
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English has really struggled to make Labour's economic policies sound looney or dangerous. He and Key both claimed that they rescued the country from imaginary deficits. Labour have more problems than Iraq right now but a lack of coherent, imaginative economic policies is NOT one of them.
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Well, Labour actually managed to competently release a policy without the leader and/or relevant spokesperson needing to “clarify” matters a few hours later.
So credit where due and keep it up, say I. The policy is probably neither as terrible or totally amazeballs as any of the usual suspects would have you believe, but at least it seems to have been assembled by grown-ups and is worth serious consideration.
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"In a remarkable exchange on Morning Report today, Steven Joyce seemed fairly determined not to let that happen."
I rarely agree with Joyce, especially when Espiner is one-sidedly chairing a debate, but he seemed to be arguing for Capital Gains to include the family home. Exemptions make it easier for the well-resourced to manipulate things, tax-avoidance that in other ways Labour is aiming to reduce.
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My response was "well I don't mind paying a little extra tax to put through the policies after all as far as I can tell I'm rich" and then I realised "holy crap I'm not even close to being taxed anything extra!"
Essentially, the $150k mark means anyone bitching about an extra couple of percent tax on earnings over their $150k really does need to check their privilege. And nailing trusts at the same time seems perfectly reasonable since most folks use trusts as a means of avoiding tax, including most MPs.
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I would like to see a party of the Left respond to the tired, old "tax and spend" cliche with "Well, yes, we are going to tax people, we're going to pool all of the money gathered from the taxes, and we are going to use it to build a better, fairer, more equitable society for all citizens and residents of our country."
What would be so wrong with that?
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Joyce was simply rude on Morning Report, and he clutched at straws when challenged by Parker.
I thought Parker was excellent this morning, Joyce got flustered and resorted to muttering disconsolately in the background...
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Andrew C, in reply to
And nailing trusts at the same time seems perfectly reasonable since most folks use trusts as a means of avoiding tax, including most MPs.
Could you explain how this is done Bart?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Essentially, the $150k mark means anyone bitching about an extra couple of percent tax on earnings over their $150k really does need to check their privilege.
What I’d like to see the media doing to everyone, is not just transcribing the claimed benefits (or drawbacks) of any policy but foregrounding the assumptions that inevitably go into arriving at them and putting them into context. If I want to read raw press releases, Scoop does a fine job of making them available. Journalists need to do more and better.
And how about the media checking the social, economic and that other C-word class privilege in assuming the only metric to measure any policy against is how it benefits the “middle-classes” with children and mortgages on over-priced urban property to support? That excludes an awful lot of people from the conversation and (surprise!) they’re the people who don’t look much like those who run this country’s newsrooms.
(ETA: Or at the very least, why can't the media-political complex just be honest and say straight up: "We don't really care about talking to you people because you don't win elections and sure as hell don't attract ad revenue.")
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Perhaps someone could explain why "borrow and spend" or "sell assets and spend" is preferable to "tax and spend".
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Could you explain how this is done Bart?
Bearing in mind I am not a tax accountant (huge sigh of relief) my understanding is that trusts will attract the top tax rate on the assumption that those benefiting from trusts are doing so to avoid paying the top rate of tax.
There are situations where trusts are set up that do not simply exist to make rich people pay less tax and again IANATA but I suspect IRD would have a mechanism to rebate that tax.
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Carol Stewart, in reply to
I thought Parker was excellent this morning,
I thought he was also excellent on the TV news last night in responding to the bottle of wine story. Calm and authoritative.
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Paul Williams, in reply to
I thought Parker was excellent this morning, Joyce got flustered and resorted to muttering disconsolately in the background...
I'll have to listen to it because when I occassionally check out recent Question Times I generally think he fails to make meaningful points in preference for technical matters that don't cut through (and he's taking airtime from other Labour shadow spokespeople who are more effective in that forum)
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I would like to see a party of the Left respond to the tired, old "tax and spend" cliche with "Well, yes, we are going to tax people, we're going to pool all of the money gathered from the taxes, and we are going to use it to build a better, fairer, more equitable society for all citizens and residents of our country."
What would be so wrong with that?
Remember those infamous "Benefit Fraud. It's A Crime" PSAs from the 1990s? How would the usual suspects like it if there was a similar campaign for tax evasion? If I were to design one, Al Capone would be the obvious figurehead.
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Swan, in reply to
"oyce appeared to be saying that what was wrong with the proposed capital gains tax was that it didn't apply to all houses. Yet his party won't implement that solution across any houses."
The capital gains tax has been sold as a means of directing investment away from residential property. But the tax will apply to 100% of the commercial property market, 100% of industry, shares, agriculture etc, and only about a third of the residential property market. Go figure.
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Brent Jackson, in reply to
But businesses don't buy property to make untaxed profits, they buy it to have somewhere to run their business (without being at the whim of a landlord). I expect a CGT would have neglible effect on businesses that aren't in the business of trading commercial property. I'm not sure what the plan is wrt farms. If the farmer/owner lives on the house on the farm does that make it their primary residence and thus immune to CGT ?
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FletcherB, in reply to
The capital gains tax has been sold as a means of directing investment away from residential property. But the tax will apply to 100% of the commercial property market, 100% of industry, shares, agriculture etc, and only about a third of the residential property market. Go figure.
How much of the residential property property market is people with spare cash looking to invest for profit, and how much is people who are simply paying for somewhere to live?
If it's about that third you just mentioned... that seems perfectly reasonable to me. -
Euan Mason, in reply to
Thanks FletcherB. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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Sacha, in reply to
many farmers currently rely on (untaxted) capital gain in their land value as their main profit stream, leveraged against to the hilt. Expect them to fight a CGT tooth and nail.
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Deborah, in reply to
I’m not sure what the plan is wrt farms. If the farmer/owner lives on the house on the farm does that make it their primary residence and thus immune to CGT
The usual thing with a CGT worldwide is to exempt the family home. On a farm, that means that the house and curtilage would be outside the CGT net.
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Deborah, in reply to
There are a number of reasons for introducing a CGT, Swan, including having another tool for slowing down housing prices in places like Auckland. It's one tool among a number there ie. no one is expected a CGT be the sole solution for Auckland housing problems.
And it's just one reason for a CGT. Another one is straight out fairness: why is it that income that we earn quickly (eg. wages) is taxed, whereas income that we earn slowly (increases in value of assets) is not taxed at all?
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